Grace
by Joy Booth
Summary: Grace: to provide clemency or pardon. What if Brennan's abusive foster family, lived next door the to the Booth's?
1. Chapter 1

What if Brennan's abusive foster family was the Booth's next door neighbors?

* * *

The summer before Seeley Booth's sophomore year of high school, he met the person who changed everything he had ever thought about himself. He was in the front yard shooting pucks into a net when a car pulled up to the Colter's house. It was a common enough occurrence, everyone knew that the Colter's took in foster kids from time to time, but this one caught his attention for some reason. He was staring at her as she got out of the car and as if she could feel his eyes on her, her glaze immediately honed in on his. He felt a shock of something, but quickly looked away going back to his shooting, while she was shuffled into the house.

It wasn't until the first day of school that he saw her again. He was headed to school early for a meeting with Coach Miller, when he saw her seeking out the back door, carefully making a point of not making any noise. He thought it was a bit odd, but he decided to ignore it and went on his way to school.

Later that day in Chemistry, he learns her name, Temperance, it's almost as odd as his but it suits her. Not that she is temperate by any means, but it is old fashion and has a certain reverence to it that he likes.

Time passes and football season turns to hockey season and Seeley Booth doesn't think much about his quiet neighbor. They pass in the halls, and he sees her at the drinking fountain, but he always tries not to look to closely. Deep down he knows why, he knows that she is hiding something, and he knows exactly what it is. He tries to ignore the signs.

When he hears people yelling in the house next door, he turns on the radio his father hates and tries to forget. He buries his head in the sand because accepting that he knows the signs of abuse means admitting that he is living with it too. He can ignore the way she flinches when people bump her in the hall or the day she showed up with her arm in a sling, telling the teacher how she fell off a bike he has never seen. But then one day he doesn't see her sneaking out of the house in the morning. He tries to tell himself that its none of his business, that she is just home sick. People miss school all the time, just because she hasn't missed a day yet, that doesn't mean anything, he insists. His gut churns but, he wont get involved. If it was him, he wouldn't want some nosey stranger asking about his personal life.

That night after his date with Regina Mendoza, he hears a sound coming from the Colter's backyard.

It's so quiet he almost dismisses it as the wind, but then his gut twists again. He looks at the Colter house and sees the glow from the television in the living room but other than that the house is dark, even Temperance's room where the light is always on, not that he has made a point to look or anything.

He focuses on the sound, trying to find an innocuous explanation.

_click, click, click, clank, click, click, clank, click..._

The sound was easily explainable, metal hitting metal, except for the odd rhythm. He moved into the shadows created by the hedge between their homes and crept silently toward the sound.

"Hello?" He whispered.

The sound stopped.

"Hello?" he repeated raising his voice only slightly. "Is someone there? It's Seeley, Seeley Booth."

Still he heard nothing and he was just turning to leave, when he heard it, an almost gasping sound of a person trying to hold their breath

just a little too long.

"I know you're there, if you come on out, then I can leave, but as it is I am not get any sleep worrying about who was skulking back here."

"Everything's fine Seeley, just go home." her voice called from somewhere in the darkness. He knew it was her the moment he heard her.

He hadn't actually ever spoken to her, but he had heard her correcting teachers enough to recognize it in nearly an instant.

"Temperance?" he questioned the darkness.

"Yes?" she replied.

"What are you doing out here at this time of night? And where are you exactly?" Booth asked, her voice was close, but it sounded weird almost like an echo. He looked around but all he saw was the same old rusty Chevy that had sat in the Colter's backyard for as long as he could remember.

"I think you should go Seeley, if..." she paused for a moment unable to say the name she had meant to, "if anybody found you here there would be questions."

"You missed school today." he offers, he doesn't know why but he just can't bring himself to leave.

"Yes, well I have a feeling I will be missing tomorrow too," she sighed.

"Where are you?" Seeley asked again, after he had walked all the way around the car. He couldn't figure out why her voice sounded so strange, or where the hell she was hiding.

"Please just go, Seeley, you have a chemistry test tomorrow and if you are just now getting home, you clearly need to go study, and I need to stop wasting air talking to you." She thought she was doing pretty well, coping with her punishment, maintaining a calm in order to conserve oxygen but if Mr. Colter found Seeley here she wasn't sure she could live through a punishment for that. She was so worried about him getting caught here, that she slipped in her effort to push him away.

Seeley felt like he had been slapped, he was so caught up in her catty comment that he almost missed the most important part of her statement.

"Temperance, why do you have a limited amount of air?" He asked, already dreading the answer.

He heard her take a deep breath.

"Listen closely, Seeley Booth, I am in the trunk of this car. It is a punishment that I deserve and if you don't leave right now, you will most likely earn me a punishment that I do not deserve. So, I will ask you one more time to please leave, and never come back here."

Seeley stepped back away from the car. Whatever he had been expecting this was not knew he was in over his head, but how could he just leave her there, then again he had no way to free her. He had already tried the door to the car and they were all locked. He could call the cops, but then what, it wasn't like he had proof that the Colter's had locked her in there. They might try to say it was a teenage prank, or a cry for attention. He had absolutely no idea what to do, but he knew he couldn't just leave.

He also knew that if he caused her any more trouble, he would not be able to live with himself. He was having a hard enough time just living with his own messed up life. He crept around the far side of the car, he figured in a pinch he could crawl through the hedge if he heard someone coming.

"Look, I don't know why you are in there, and I don't know what you could have possible done to deserve it, and I know you can't really talk, but I can't just walk away, so I am going to sit here out of sight for a while, while you think of a way for me to make sure you don't die in there." He finally said after taking a seat on the ground, leaning his tired frame against the rear wheel well.

He thought that she might be ignoring him, or that maybe that last deep breath might have been the last of her air, but then he was relived to hear an almost silent, "Ok, I will work on it."

"Just promise me that if you start to feel light-headed, you will tell me so I can go find a crowbar or something and break you out." He offered thoughtfully, he didn't want to get her in anymore trouble, but he was not going to let her die in there either.

"Ok,"She returned, before lapsing into silence as she began to plot her survival.

_A/N: ok so super angsty not really my style usually, but this idea just came to me, and it refused to go away. Also I wanted to say that if people think they are OCC, just try to remember that each is in a very different head space than they are now. and I noticed in the episode where they talk about the incident she tells the story like someone who has gone to therapy and no accepts that things happened to her, things that were not her fault and that she did not deserve, but at the time she probably felt differently. Lastly they are the same age in this fic because a four or five-year age difference is awkward between 14-18. as always please tip your writer (aka leave a review) and tell me what you think because the more reviews I get the more I get jazzed about a story._


	2. Compassion

At first Booth was tense, waiting to have someone show up at a moment's notice, but after a while he seemed to realize that no one was coming. No one was coming to check on her, because no on cared. After a while the clicking picked up again, she must have been fidgeting with something, but he took comfort in the noise because that meet she was still thinking, still breathing.

He was almost lulled to sleep by the gentle sound when he heard her again.

"Seeley?" She called.

"Yeah, I'm here."

He thought he heard a sigh of relief, but he probably imagined it.

"Do you have a hand drill at your house?" She asked.

"Um, I think so maybe in the back shed, my dad used to fix stuff around the house, I think I have seen one."

"Ok, well I pulled back the corner of the carpet and there seems to just be a thin layer of metal between me and the ground you could drill up and air hole and then, if i hear someone coming I could put the carpet back."

"I'll go see what I can find."

He was gone much longer than he wanted to be, because the shed was dark and unorganized. He had gone into the house to get s flashlight, but then he ran into his father, who was only too happy to give him a beating for being out past curfew. When his father had finally gotten bored, Booth went to the bathroom and patched himself. By the time he got out of the bathroom, his father was passed out on the couch. He grabbed the flashlight from on top the refrigerator, but then his stomach growled.

_'Shit,' _he thought, _'if she wasn't in school she has probably been in the trunk since last night. She must be_ starving... _What could I bring her?_'

His mind drifted for a few moments eyes skimming the pantry before his eyes landed on a bag of trail mix. That would do the job, if he could find the damn drill. He hurried to the shed. When he finally got back to the car he called her name, but there was no response. He tried not to panic, she might have just fallen asleep and it wasn't like he could call her very loudly, so he just made quick work of making an air hole.

"Seeley?" Temperance whispered. She had been woken up by a strange scratching noise and found herself hoping against hope that it was the cocky boy next door.

"It's me," he answered, "try not to talk until I get finished here. You should probably move so I don't you when I get through."

"I am out of the way," she confirmed.

Finally Booth felt the barrier give way. Temperance noticed the rush of fresh, cool air, at least now she wouldn't suffocate.

"I am sure my punishment will end in the morning, Seeley. You should probably get to bed, I am no longer in danger." Came the quiet voice from inside the trunk.

Booth chuckled humorlessly at this. Not in danger, living with someone who would lock her in a trunk for days.

"I brought you some trail mix." he offered.

"I am much more likely to die without water than food," She said in that voice she used to correct teachers. Booth to make an equally rude reply, when she quickly added."I appreciate the trouble you went to."

"_I highly doubt that," _he thought as he gave his still tender ribs a rub. Instead of making a comment, he ripped open the bag, and started pushing peanuts, raisins and chocolate through the hole he had just made.

"What is the atomic number of manganese?" She asked after a while.

"Excuse me?"

"If you are not going to leave then, I should help you study for you test."

"Okay?"

"So, what is the atomic number for manganese?" She repeated.

Booth thought for a few minutes, "26?"

"25, symbol?"

This went on for a long time until both were taking longer and longer to speak.

"You okay in there?" Booth asked after he had told her an answer three times. There was no response, but when Booth got closer, he heard the sound of quiet snoring. Not knowing what else to do, he decided to go home and try to get some rest. It was already three AM, but Booth set his alarm for five, so he could check on Temperance and try to get her some water before the sun came up and made it a lot harder for him to sneak into the Colter's yard

**A/N: I know that it seems weird not to break her out, but he is just a kid. Hope you like it, and please review.**


End file.
